So, there are a couple things attached to this. Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped by the Mossad in 1960, which was a rather turbulent time for Argentina. Right-wing nationalism was one of the major social and political power players for much of the twentieth century in Argentina, right up until around the mid-1980s with the country’s last military dictatorship relinquishing power in 1983. In 1960, many were still recovering from the wounds inflicted only five years before during the coup d’état that ousted the divisive populist Juan Perón from the presidency. The country‘s political scene was deeply divided along Peronist and anti-Peronist lines, while a new generation of right-wing Catholic nationalists began to take form. This new generation, composed primarily of the children of conservative, Catholic, oligarchic families, formed radical organizations like the Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara and the Guardia Restauradora Nacionalista. These new nationalist groups took it upon themselves to target those considered to be non-Argentinian or otherwise undesirable, including socialists, communists, democrats, and non-Catholics, including Argentina’s Jewish population which at this point was the largest in Latin America.

With right-wing Catholic nationalism as a major social and political player in Argentina, it was suspected that should the Israeli government pursue a diplomatic approach to bring Eichmann to Israel for trial, then one of several things would occur: they suspected that someone in Argentina’s foreign ministry sympathetic to Eichmann would either delay the extradition process, outright deny Israel’s extradition request, or notify Eichmann of Israel’s plans to give him time to relocate.

Reactions to Eichmann’s kidnapping from within Argentina show that the Mossad was probably justified in believing that unilaterally kidnapping him was the best way to secure custody over him. The aforementioned nationalist groups retaliated by targeting Jewish Argentinians, with the most notorious incident being the attack on a 19-year-old student named Graciela Narcisa Sirota. This girl was kidnapped, beaten, burned with cigarettes, and had swastikas tattooed on her chest at the hands of three nationalist youth in Buenos Aires. Those who perpetrated this attack admitted outright that their acts were meant as retribution for Eichmann’s kidnapping.

If you want to read more about Argentina’s Jewish community and relations between a Argentina and Israel, I would recommend anything by the Israeli historian Raanan Rein, namely his book “Argentine Jews or Jewish Argentines”. You can also check out Seymour Liebman and his work on Jewish Argentinian institutions, Jeffrey Marder and his work on the Organización Israelita Argentina, as well as Graciela Ben-Dror and her work on Argentina’s Jewish community and its relationship with the Argentinian Church.